Wheel Guns at the Range

Grilled hamburgers make you a better shot, especially with magnum wheel guns. At least that's the theory, but is it true? We took LL's Smith & Wesson .460 Magnum and Colt Python .357 Magnum to the range to find out.

It seemed to make sense to start with the mighty .460, that fires a bullet with the kind of kenetic explosive power you'd expect from a freight train roaring out of a tunnel. Mighty ballistics hi-power. After that, the Colt Python seemed a gentle gun, firing a round that was only designed to go through engine blocks. 

LL Considers The Range

But was our marksmanship improved by last night's burgers? Yes, it was. A green silhouette was taking rounds in the X Ring and before long LL suggested we move on to shooting hotel key cards. "As a training exercise," he said.

Key Cards Down

Well, you can't train too much and LL made short work of the key card opposition, proving that deadly accuracy is achievable with the significant .357 Magnum. Then it was my turn and I started shooting just low right of the "Elite" card. "Calm down, breathe," said my maritime ally, and I did. Key card down. They took a beating.

Python

So did a kettle, a steel turkey and a couple of plates, but that's a different story. Still, what's the verdict?

Big wheel guns are powerful medicine and, if you want to improve your magnum skills, be sure to grill up some burgers the night before. Thanks, LL, for the revolver opportunity. 

Gun Rights,

LSP

You Plinker!

Some say that a dinner of roast quail and venison sausage, rifle to table, helps you shoot better the next day at the range. I drove out into the Texan countryside with my philisophical pal, GWB, to find out.

We took along a couple of scoped Ruger .22s, an American and a 10/22, representing the bolt and the semi side of the rimfire world. And a couple of pistols, a Sig and a Glock, chambered for 9mm and .45. But what about the quail and venison theory of marksmanship, how did that stand up, in the real world?

If a metal kettle, a plastic Folgers container, steel plates and turkey, at 75 and 100 yards, are anything to go by, the theory holds true. Down went the opposition, with a vengeance. I claim the best pistol shot of the day, hitting the kettle at 75 yards with the Glock. Sorry, kettle, you lose. I never much liked you anyway.

Shoot over, GWB wanted to check out the land behind the range for what he calls "native Texan grasses." That excitement over, I spotted a piece of metal, shining in the hot spring sun. "Look at that, you see it, glinting in the sun?" I asked my Wittgensteinian ally, "Maybe it's a piece of UFO debris. Let's have a look."

It wasn't a bit of space junk, annoyingly, just an old air conditioner that someone had dumped. And as I reflected on the higher implications of that, a long rattlesnake uncoiled silently from beneath the rusting metal and made its way, gliding and deadly, into a nearby pipe. Moral of the story?

Quail and venison help you shoot. This is now settled science. Also, don't be a dimwit when you go for a nature ramble in Texas, it's not Devon, or the Cotswolds. Take a gun, you might need it, and be careful poking around in space junk, who knows what killers might lurk within.

Shoot straight,

LSP

Labor Day Pistol Shoot

To celebrate Labor Day I went to the range for a pistol shoot. I wanted to get more familiar with the Glock 21 and see how the pistol worked with its new Blackhawk SERPA TECH holster. Would the holster improve my accuracy with the famously smooth shooting piece of Austrian engineering achievement? To find out, I lined up against a 12" steel plate at around 20 yards.

Sure enough, the holster worked, and so did the Glock. Encouraged by the satisfyingly swinging plate, I unloaded a few 13 round magazines of .45 ACP against the pockmarked steel opposition. Big fun, then, on my last but one shot, remember to count your rounds, kids, the pistol fired, the plate swung, and a piece of shrapnel  fired back at me at lightning speed. 

I could see it coming, just, and there it was, a bit of steel embedded in my support hand. I looked down at the offender, holstered my gun, and picked the metal out of my hand, as though it was a bad heretic, getting excommunicated from the Church.

I fired off the rest of my Winchester White Box Value Pack against a paper silhouette. That didn't shoot back, fortunately.

Moral of the story? Be careful shooting against steel plates; I wasn't hurt, but that same bit of steel that found my hand could have chosen an eye, which might have made for a much less happy ending, sunglasses notwithstanding.

Watch out for the bears,

LSP